Formora of the Forsworn
by SnowFlower Frost
Summary: You hear about Eragon and Murtagh, Brom and Oromis, Vrael and Arya. But there's one Rider who's been forgotten. Formora used to be an average elf, once, but then she was chosen as a Rider, and sometime after she fell pray to Galbatorix's manipulations. This is a Rider's tale.
1. Prologue

**I'll say this once and get it over with... In no way, shape, or form, do I own or claim to own the Inheritance Cycle. It all belongs to the wonderfully talented Christopher Paolini. **

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**Formora of the Forsworn – A Rider's Tale**

**Prologue**

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A young elf with piercing green eyes, pale skin, and bright red hair waited impatiently in a long lineup winding through the many tree houses of Ellesmera. She tapped her foot, gazing with wonder to the very front of the lineup, where a gold, a purple, and a brown egg lay on velvet cushions, guarded by a rider and his dragon.

What caught her attention the most, though, was the way she was almost at the very front. If she was picked… If a dragon picked her to be a Rider… It would be a dream come true for the young elf. But she was realistic, and she knew the odds of a dragon picking her were very, very low. All the same, she knew she had to try.

The person standing in front of her went up and ran their hand over each egg gently, before walking away a bit disappointedly. The elf knew that if Faolin wasn't picked, then what were the odds of a dragon picking her, a young elf barely twenty years old?

She reverently stepped forward, her eyes wide in awe, thought after thought racing through her mind. She touched the gold egg, then walked over to the purple and touched it, too. Neither of them seemed to react to her, so she nervously trod over to the brown egg, the last one, and ran her hand over it. Nothing happened, and, disappointed, she turned to walk away.

A voice rang out behind her. "Wait, child!"

She turned excitedly. "Yes, Rider Thuviel?"

Thuviel smiled, motioning for her to approach him. "What's your name, child?"

"My name?" the elf seemed surprised. "My name… My name is Formora."


	2. The Birth of a Dragon

**Formora of the Forsworn – A Rider's Tale**

**Chapter One: The Birth of a Dragon**

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Thuviel motioned to the brown egg. "He has chosen you, Formora of Osilon. What say you?"

Formora gasped. "Me? A rider? I… I am honored, Rider Thuviel."

He picked up the brown egg and handed it to her, and she cradled it like a babe.

He said. "You will return with me and Enchanta to Illirea, which is-"

Formora cut him off in her excitement. "-one of the rider's outposts!"

Thuviel laughed. "That's right, young one. Stay by my side, Formora, until we depart Ellesmera. It would do you no good to wander off."

Formora waited, bouncing in excitement, and the time passed quickly, in the blink of an eye, as it often does in the strangest moments. Soon enough, the line up was gone, and in it's place was an empty queue, with two eggs, a gold and a purple, sitting at the front.

Thuviel gently picked up the eggs and tucked them away in a carefully padded saddlebag as the sun slowly sank beneath the horizon and the darkness of night settled over Du Weldenvarden like a blanket, bringing peace and silence along with it.

"It's time to go, young one," said Thuviel. "You will be coming with me to Illirea, where I will train you until you and your dragon have matured enough to make the trip to Doru Araeba, on Vroengard, which is the home of the riders."

Formora nodded, her hands practically shaking in excitement, and she clutched the brown egg tighter to her chest.

Thuviel continued, saying gently. "Enchanta will give you a ride. You can ride behind me."

"Really?" Formora almost squealed in her excitement, portraying much more emotion than was usual for an elf – but then again, Formora had always been unusual. She had never quite fit in, even among those of Osilon, who were known to be a little strange at times.

Thuviel laughed and nodded, giving her a boost onto the orange dragon, before climbing on in front of her. He patiently strapped her in, knowing that it was better to be secure than not, and then asked Enchanta to fly.

Formora had never seen anything like it before, and her breath caught in her throat, her eyes wide as the trees of her childhood home stretched out endlessly underneath her, and blue sky in directions all around. Everything was in miniature, and when the trees of Du Weldenvarden gave way to rolling hills inhabited by humans, when a mountain range appeared in the distance, when finally they began to approach Illirea itself, Formora was too preoccupied with the beauty of this strange new world to notice.

She now knew why she had never fit in with the others of her kind – she was meant to be a dragon rider, and a dragon rider she would become.

As Enchanta began to land, Formora gazed at the egg with sudden gratitude – a dragon had chosen her. She gathered her courage and asked. "Excuse me, Rider Thuviel? When will the egg hatch?"

Thuviel looked at her, smiling. "It depends, young one. Soon, I would imagine. No more than a moon cycle."

Formora nodded. "Thank you, Rider Thuviel…"

Enchanta hit the ground with a sudden thump, and she gasped. Somehow, she had always imagined dragons being a little more graceful, but she supposed that there were surprises for everyone. And who knew? Perhaps it was just Enchanta.

Or maybe much of what she knew about dragons wasn't true – she had only briefly learnt about Du Fyrn Skullblaka, it had been so long ago that elves rarely saw fit to teach their children about the horrors of wars long past and battles long fought. The older generation would remember, and that would, they reasoned, be more than enough.

Thuviel unstrapped her legs from the saddle, and helped her down after he hopped down himself. Enchanta flew off, "to the dragon quarters" Thuviel had explained, and then he had taken her on a tour of Illirea.

She had never been out of Du Weldenvarden before, and never before had she seen one who was not of the elven race. She had always wondered what humans were like, but upon first glance, it seemed like they were much like elves – they just used much less magic.

Soon after, Thuviel had shown her to a room she could have, in the rider's barracks of Illirea – a tall, golden building with long pillars and several floors, it was more like a palace than a building for sleeping. Each room had an opening to the outside through which a large dragon could enter, and on the middle of each floor was a place that apprentices and teachers could socialize.

Formora had been told that the highest floor rooms were for the Senior Riders of the Order when they came to visit, the sixth and fifth floor rooms were for the teachers, the fourth and third floor rooms were for the apprentices, and the second and first floors rooms were for newly full-fledged riders.

She took a closer glance around her new room and noticed that it must have been made with an elf in mind – it had a feel very close to that of the houses back in her home, and while she knew that it was not, it was a comfort to her all the same – perhaps everything she had known hadn't been left behind, after all.

There was a large bed in the center of the room, a desk and a wardrobe pushed against the side, and a depression in the ground that she recognized as a bathtub. The side of the room closest to the outside had a full glass wall that she noticed could be lifted and lowered, so a dragon could enter, and the right side of the room had a very comfortable looking type of mat laid on the floor.

She gently laid down her meager bag of possessions on the bed and placed the brown egg on a pad on the dresser that had clearly been made just for that purpose. As she did so, the colors of the room changed from their previous green to a brown that was identical to the colors of the egg.

Two weeks passed in a routine of rising with the sun, studying magic through spellbooks, and socializing with the other apprentices in the evening, until the day that the brown egg began to shake.

Formora looked at it, concerned, and made her way over to it from where she was lying on her bed. She poked it cautiously, trying to determine if it was hatching, or if the baby dragon inside was just moving around. At her touch, a large crack appeared in the shiny surface of the egg, and her breath caught in her throat, her blood roaring in her ears until she managed to start breathing again.

She cautiously moved the pad to the wooden floor, so that when the dragon hatched it wouldn't fall off the dresser and hurt itself. Had her body been functioning properly, she would have fetched some meat from the kitchens on the first floor, but it was all she could do to take steady breaths as her lifetime dream unfolded in front of her.

Her mother would be very proud, and her father even more so, when she returned to them with a dragon by her side. And she would be proud of herself, too – she would finally have someone she could be close to without any repercussions. Without any betrayal. She smiled softly, her green eyes both nervous and eager, in one of the last moments where her mind would be totally and fully private, no connection to any other being, living or not.

She bit her lip as another long crack appeared in the egg, suddenly wondering if perhaps Thuivel had made a mistake, and the dragon hadn't picked her, after all. She would have to return home in shame, and she would forever wonder what could have been.

The egg shook more fiercely, and the top popped off and a brown head appeared, eggshell on top of it's head like a not so stylish hat. Formora let out a little laugh at the very cute – and very silly – picture the little dragon made, and she cooed. "Hi there, little one. My name is Formora."

The dragon looked at her and chirred, making to break out of the egg completely, and with a little shaking, the dragon made it. She laughed as it shook the eggshell off it's head, as if it had just realized it was there, and looked at her palm – there was no silver swirl, no gedwey ignasia, but somehow she couldn't find it in herself to feel disappointed.

"I'll go get you some food," she told the little dragon, "and then I'll help Thuivel find your _real _rider."

She snuck out of the room and down to the thankfully unoccupied first floor kitchen, where she grabbed several cuts of meats before practically running back upstairs to her room on the fourth floor. What she hadn't noticed, however, was that in the very corner of the kitchen, an old rider sat, and he chuckled quietly. "Young uns…" he said, bemused. "S'like they thinks we old ones knows nothin'."

Formora opened the door to her room and slipped inside, setting the cuts of meat before the dragon and watching with fascination as the dragon ate each and every bite, despite the fact that Formora herself did not eat meat and even the thought of doing so made her fell slightly sick. Somehow, though, when the little dragon did it, it was different – perhaps because it knew no better.

The dragon looked up at her and purred, seeming very happy. It took a small, wobbly step towards her, it's wings flaring as it struggled to keep it's balance, and once again Formora found herself hard-pressed not to laugh, especially knowing that soon enough the dragon would be big enough to carry a person on it's back as it flew. She took a reflexive step back, much to the dragon's dismay, as it let out a little whine.

She smiled at the dragon, reaching out her left hand to touch it's nose, but the distance wasn't quite as short as she had thought it was, and she found herself nearly falling, and so she caught herself with her left hand, her right flying out to possibly steady herself further, Formora found that she didn't quite know.

Whatever the case, her right hand made contact with something soft – the dragon's nose, she realized with horror, and then she felt an excruciating pain in her palm. She lifted her hand and looked at it, recognizing the silver spiral burn of the gedwey ignasia, and then she knew no more.

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**Hi everyone! Thanks for reading this far, and if anyone has any suggestions or comments, feel free to let me know! This is my first time venturing into the diverse world of the Inheritance Cycle as a writer but this idea wouldn't just leave me alone. As it seemed unique enough, I decided to do it!**

**Cheers,**

**Snow**


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